Written & Directed by Andrew Bujalski, Support the Girls follows Lisa, played by Regina Hall. The story is about her life as a general manager at a highway-side sports bar that resembles called Hooters Double Whammies. Just look at the promotional photos and get the idea – tits and ass.
Yet, Lisa is the last person anyone expected to find this type of establishment. She comes to love the place and its customers. As an intuitive mother, she nurtures and sternly protects her ‘girls’ on the staff.
The straw finally broke her back one day, and her genuine buoyancy was pummeled from every direction.
Lisa learns that fantasy sometimes becomes a reality, and nothing is far from the truth.
In 20014, Bujalski won the “Someone to Watch” Independent Spirit Award for Funny Ha Ha, which is nothing like Support the Girls. He offers his thoughts on establishments like Hooters. “It seems like just about the simplest business concept you could imagine – ‘What if all the waitresses in this restaurant wore tight, cleavage-y halter tops?’– but I couldn’t get over how bizarre it ultimately was. No culture besides present-day America would ever produce mass-scale demand for such a place, a business that seems about 10% strip club and 90% TGI Friday’s/Applebee’s/Chili’s/Cracker Barrel. Strippers are supposed to make men feel like badass transgressors. But these women are just supposed to make you feel normal — the proverbial “red-blooded American male.”
I totally agree with what he says because…Really? How can a woman act normal when she is practically bare-assed?
Hall liked Bujalski’s script and wanted to be in the movie. “From the moment I read it, I just resonated with Lisa. I had seen Andrew’s work and thought he wrote such a beautifully complex yet simplistic script. He was able to find the humanity in this space that we take for granted or don’t necessarily even think about. I just loved the chord that he touched on with this group of people, these women, and girls. I thought Lisa was great: her need to help, her need to fix, her need to save, and her need to be needed. It just resonated on so many levels.”
The movie is receiving accolades from critics. Regina Hall is the first Black woman to win Best Actress in the New York Film Critics Circle’s 83-year history this year for her portrayal of Lisa.
Hall also starred in another strong cultural movie called The Hate U Give. The film is based on a book of the same name, but the power of the situation is nothing compared to Support the Girls. Though, Lisa does nurture the girls in a motherly way. This situation is not racist like The Hate U Give.
The cast is rounded out quite nicely with Haley Lu Richardson, Shayna McHayle, James LeGros, Dylan Gelula, AJ Michalka, Brooklyn Decker, Jana Kramer, John Elvis, and Lea DeLaria.